A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!


September 9th 2022

Chapter 252
Our Realizations of One

"Oh, does she ever want to come out of there, huh…" Lucas smiled, feeling the baby move under his hand.

"Yeah, well, she better not get any ideas. You stay in there, alright, Lucky? One more month, that's it," Maya addressed their unborn daughter. The way the movement shifted, halted, they had to smile, like the baby had heard her mother and almost turned around to look at her with incredulous eyes. "So, that's how it's going to be, huh?" Maya joked.

"You listen to your mama now, Aubrey, alright?" Lucas played along, imagining the baby now turning to look at him like 'aww, Dad!'

"Ooh, authority so early in the morning…" Maya turned a smirk to him, which made him laugh.

"I know what you like," he shrugged, and she nodded.

"You certainly do," she gestured at herself, which somehow managed to encompass not only this pregnancy but each one preceding it, and possibly much, much more in the way of how they'd ended up with those baby girls in the first place.

"I'm glad you think so," he smiled, and she motioned for him to come closer, the better for her to kiss him, something which he gladly obliged, pulling her into his arms as he did so. One more month… They could hardly believe it. One more month to their sixth baby, their – lucky – seventh child…

Of course, today, once others in their house would start to wake up, it would all be about the one before Aubrey. Fifth baby, sixth child, funny little macaroni herself, Mackenzie Abigail Friar was one whole year old today. Definitely, to find themselves this close to another baby being born was making this day feel even more surreal than it might have done otherwise, but that was what it was, and this day was for their Mack Attack… and she wasn't going to let them forget it.

The triplets had been their first adepts at the crib escape, where Marianne had never been, but where they had mostly used this power to find themselves in the same place as their fellow triplets, Mackenzie was outpacing all her sisters by far. Not only could she manage to pull herself out of her crib and down to the floor safely, but she had now started to use her walking feet to get herself out into the hall and toward her parents' room. They'd be in bed still, him in mid-conference, her watching him being a dork, and then Maya would either look up or see something out of her peripheral vision, and there would be this little face, tipped just into view in the doorway. Today was no exception, and her parents had kind of counted on it.

Would it wake the rest of the girls up, and possibly everyone upstairs, too? Yes, but for the occasion, it felt like a worthy sacrifice. They'd kept their ears stretched in the morning silence, and they'd known exactly when the escape of Kid Fleetwood began. When it did, Maya signed, and Lucas nodded before climbing quietly out of bed, the better to position himself out of view, inside the door. He only had to watch her then, playing casual as ever. The moment she'd spot Mackenzie, even just out of the corner of her eyes, he would see it on her face. And when he did… When he knew she was there, he jumped out to surprise her before scooping her up on the fly. Her squeal was loud, and it was everything.

"Hey, there, Macaroon," Lucas smirked, giving her a little spin. "Fancy meeting you here, huh?" he asked, having to do very little to make her keep on giggling. "Want to go see Mama? Do you want to go see Mama, birthday girl?" he asked, and Mackenzie spun her head back to look at the bed, where Maya awaited her with a smile.

"My! My!" she spoke, one of her few words but one they were getting to know very well. They weren't sure how she'd picked it up, but she had, and she'd assigned it a very independent meaning. It was her way of saying that she didn't want to be carried, that she wanted to walk by herself, and they could see how it could easily stretch to her declaring that she could do many other things on her own in the future.

"Yeah, well, you can't exactly climb up there by yourself, so will you settle for a crawl?" Lucas kissed the top of her head before bringing her to the foot of the bed. Apparently, that worked for her, as she began heartily crawling up toward her mother almost before he'd let her go, like a wound-up toy.

"Happy birthday, Miss Mackenzie!" Maya laughed as the girl reached her and immediately bowed her head to her belly, arms wrapped around her as far as they would go. "You want to say hello to Baby Sister?" she asked, and Mackenzie nodded, giving several babbled chirps of 'hi!'

She knew there was something in there, and sometimes it was hard to tell if she understood that it was a baby or not. Maybe she just thought there was a little creature living inside her mother's belly. She wouldn't have been the first to make an assumption like that. The part that really mattered was that she seemed to like that little creature like it was her friend, and so here she'd come, immediately showing affection toward her creature friend. They had to wonder what she'd think once said creature was no longer on the inside.

The time they had where it was just the three of them was very brief. As had been assumed, the squeal of surprise out of the birthday girl had awakened her sisters. Soon, the triplets came walking across the hall into their parents' room, at first seeming barely awake and just a bit confused, but as soon as they spotted their little sister, it was like a light had gone on, reminding them: ah, yes, it was her birthday!

Rather than end up with a pile-up on the bed, as fun as it would have been, Lucas went ahead and lifted Mackenzie to deposit her back on her feet so that Kacey, Remy, and Lucy could come and wish her a happy birthday. Big day though it was for their family, it was also a weekday, which meant school for Marianne, Eliza, and Emma, and work for Lucas. The triplets would have all day to celebrate their baby sister with their mother – and would they ever – but right now they had to get moving with the morning routine.

"Mack Attack!" Marianne appeared, looking like perhaps she'd already had plans for what she would do as her baby sister woke up in their room on her birthday, up until Mackenzie had climbed out of her crib and gone seeking their parents. Those plans may have changed all of a sudden, but that didn't matter very much, not once Mackenzie saw her big sister and went waddle running toward her. Marianne could still pick her up, and she did so now, hugging her and wishing her a happy birthday. Mackenzie thanked her with a few big kisses over her face.

After that, it was the aunties' turn – and then some – as Emma came along, and right behind her were both Eliza and Ben. They had been following a somewhat regular cycle of one night here/one night there for a while, and they'd made a big joke of how the night before last night had also been a night here, making this one a second in a row, which was perhaps a big deal? Whether that was so or not was debatable. Frankly, where Maya and Lucas were concerned, Ben could stay with them for as long as he wanted. One more person wasn't going to make things more complicated, especially not someone like him.

The longer the two of them had been together, officially so, the stronger their relationship had been getting. It was to the point where Maya could just about see into her sister's mind, see that she might have wanted to live with her boyfriend full time, might have considered moving in with him outright, except that she was devoted not only to living her four years in her sister's house but also to being on hand, to help with her nieces as she had done since the start. The entire reason that she and Emma had finally chosen to come to Austin had been that they'd found out about the triplets, wasn't it? So, she couldn't just leave… Whether that was true or not was entirely for her to decide, naturally. Neither Maya nor Lucas would ever hold her back if she wanted to leave, just as they had known when Emma had made her choice. Oh, they were always ever so thankful for the assistance, but it was not a prerequisite of any kind. They were always just glad to have them nearby.

Ben certainly played in favor of them extending a key to him with how he took the reins for breakfast that morning, the better for both Maya and Lucas, in addition to getting everyone promptly ready, to get to focus all their attention on their daughters, on the one whose birthday it was. It was briefly distracting to see the way Eliza watched him, that big smile on her face all the while, and to see how Ben would be smiling, too, nearly to the point of blushing. They were happy, and no one could ever fault them for that, could they?

"Can Mackenzie come to school with me today?" Marianne asked when it was time for her and Lucas to head out.

"All day?" he asked her, and she nodded. "She's about five years too early for kindergarten, isn't she?" he smirked, especially as she shrugged. "I'm afraid not, pumpkin, I'm sorry. She'll be right here when you get back though." It was a small disappointment, like she'd already figured he would say no, but she still had to ask, just in case.

So, off they went, the two of them, and Emma, and Eliza and Ben, which left Maya alone with her four youngest. They would soon be joined by Pappy Joe and Patty, who were driving down from Houston today, but until then, it was just the five of them, and the dogs, so they continued as they would on a normal day, easing into morning after breakfast with a bit of cartoons on television. They would sit on the floor, Mackenzie surrounded by her older sisters, like they'd inducted her into their group, and they'd become quadruplets. It would hardly matter that one of them was significantly shorter than the rest. Meanwhile, Maya would be on the couch, there joined by at least one or two of the dogs. Today, it was Artie on the cushions with her as he nuzzled at her belly, while Jax was lying at her feet, nearly curled right over them as though to say, 'you are good here, now stay.'

The peace lasted right up until the doorbell rang, and then it was a rush of girls and dogs to go and find who was there. They knew even without seeing them, and when they did see them, oh, were they ever excited. Once they had seen them all through the windows, Pappy Joe went ahead and used his key and they let themselves in, careful not to let anyone get past.

"Alright, which one of you's got a birthday today?" he 'interrogated.' At once, Kacey, Lucy, and Remy all pointed to their little sister, who looked at all of them before looking at her great grandfather and raising her hands. "You know, I thought it was," Pappy Joe nodded confidently before carefully picking her up with a light strain. As he would tell them 'you're small, but I'm old.'

Melinda Friar had just about cornered the market when it came to making her granddaughters' birthday cakes, so no one was about to take that from her. Still, Patty had taken it upon herself to at least do something for her great granddaughter, so she'd settled on making a dessert for them to have after lunch, and she recruited the triplets to come and assist her. They'd been doing this more and more, and they were really getting to love it, even as one of them, say a little kitty kit, was becoming well known as a mess maker. This left Maya to watch Lucas' grandfather play with the one-year-old blonde in the living room. He would tell her stories, making great, somewhat exaggerated faces at her, and Mackenzie would watch him with great intent, even as she'd be trying to imitate his expressions. That would only make him laugh after a while, and she would imitate that, too.

The day saw some play time outside the house, and a trip to the park which left Mama Maya the chance to catch a quiet nap to herself before they all returned with their cheer and their sounds and made the world resume. Shortly after they'd returned, Ella called between classes, making sure she would get to talk to her little sister and wish her a happy birthday, as she wouldn't see her until the next evening when she came home for the weekend and the party. Mackenzie tried and kissed the screen, and even if she couldn't actually reach her big sister, she seemed satisfied.

At long last – at least it seemed that way for her – Marianne came home along with Winnie, as Lucas brought them home from kindergarten. She'd used every minute that she could dedicate to it in order to draw a banner for Mackenzie. At least it would be a banner, once all the papers were stuck together. Lucas helped her in accomplishing this before going ahead and hanging it up over the kitchen wall. Marianne would want them to hang it in hers and Mackenzie's room that night, which they would do, but for now she liked it there, perfect for dinner with the family that night.

"I'm glad at least she got to have one birthday before the baby comes," Maya declared, that night, as she and Lucas got ready for bed. "It would have felt weird if she hadn't, wouldn't it?"

"A little, yeah," Lucas agreed. After a moment, he smiled.

"What?" Maya asked, curious as to what he was thinking. He went and dimmed the lights, turned on some music – quietly – and she smiled knowingly. The evening dance routine… She would miss that after the baby was born. Maybe they could carry it on, couldn't they? A little dancing could go a long way to send them off to a good night's sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners